"Nobel Prize kind of stuff. Fo’ sho." An Analysis of the English Found in Food Blogs

Abstract

This essay examines the frequency of Non-Standard English variants in six American food blogs in relation to gender and contents. The blog posts and commentaries of each blog were thoroughly analyzed to discern the frequency of Non-Standard variants. The results found that the language in the examined blogs generally follows the norms of Standard English with relatively few instances of deviating variants. There was a discrepancy between the male and the female blogs as no examples of Non-Standard variants were found in the male blogs, a result which is in contrast to what has been demonstrated in previous research on Non-Standard English. The female blog authors used the Non-Standard variants kinda/sorta, variation in spelling and the variation y’all. These Non-Standard linguistic variants seemed to be used to enhance feelings or attitudes and to maintain a friendly tone towards the readers.